Linux Counter


The Linux Counter was a website which attempted to measure the number of people using the Linux operating system, along with the number of machines those users use. The counter was run by a nonprofit membership organization called the Linux Counter Project. The organization was created on 1 May 1999, taking over the running of the counter from Harald Tveit Alvestrand, who had been running the project since 1993.
In 2011, it was taken over by Christin Löhner, who did a complete rewrite of the code.
On 10 December 2018, Christin announced that the project would end, citing lack of time and user interest.

Purpose of Linux Counter

The Linux Counter was started "for fun" with the goal to estimate the number of Linux users there are worldwide. The project invited users to register themselves as being a Linux user and then used various statistical heuristics to estimate the number of Linux users who did not register and the total number of Linux users worldwide. The project initially tracked the number of Linux users, but later extended to statistics on Linux users, the machines they use, software they use and in what part of the world Linux users actually lived.
A second purpose of the Linux Counter was to help Linux users to find each other. The Linux Counter was reporting Linux users in almost any place in the world. If Linux users set their information to be public, one could easily find those users; Linux users could, for example, find other Linux users who lived somewhere near them.

Attention paid to the Counter

At the time when Linux first burst into the limelight, there were quite a few news articles about the Linux Counter, including three Slashdot articles. Linux Today reported how Microsoft Austria used the site for spamming Linux users; the counter kept a list of press references, occasionally updated.

New Linux Counter

As of 2011 the original Linux Counter has been superseded by a new and re-written version , by Christin Löhner, which has since been Slashdotted.
Sometime in December 2018 the project closed.

End of project

On 10 December 2018, Christin made a post on her personal blog announcing that she would no longer maintain the project, due to lack of time, lack of help and lack of interest as indicated by few to no new registrations or machines.